Jon made possibly his second appearance of the year to lead us on tonight’s run from Beaulieu Road. It was a nice new loop with a mixture of open and woodland. We were once again treated to bright sunshine although there was no breeze this evening which made things a little unpleasant. I’m afraid I wimped out and didn’t do the extra loop down to the south-east at the end. With touch rugby at lunchtime I thought I should be saving myself for tomorrow’s RR10.
Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category
Jon’s run
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009New Southampton Orienteering Course
Saturday, June 20th, 2009We went along to Southampton Common this morning for the opening of the orienteering club’s latest permanent orienteering course. The map comes with three course suggestions which I duly ignored and instead went to see how fast I could get all 26 controls visiting them in any order. It took me 29’11 over 6.1km but, given the size of the red and white markers (about 1.5″ square) and the propensity for them to be hidden on the back of something in the general vicinity of the feature, it easily could have been under 25 minutes if I hadn’t had to do so much hunting around. This is at least partly because the club was not allowed to create any new fixtures on the common. Thankfully there was no temptation to dive off down the tiny tracks through the undergrowth as we weren’t allowed to map these either! It certainly took me to corners of the common I’ve never been to in our fleeting trips across the area on Tuesday nights in the winter. If you fancy giving it a go yourself, maps can be purchased from the Hawthorns Wildlife Centre down in the south-east corner of the common (which proved a pleasant enough location for a simple lunch).
Out of Touch
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009I made it out to Beaulieu Road again this evening and we had another sunny run, this time doing a anti-clockwise loop out towards Deerleap. I was grateful for the opportunity to vote for the short route on a couple of occasions as I was aching in all sorts of strange places having played touch rugby at lunchtime. (I’m glad to say that we won the rugby but I wouldn’t claim much of the credit.)
Trig point run
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009Having given myself last Tuesday off running (donated blood in the morning and then child minding would have meant missing the pub) it was good to be out at Beaulieu Road tonight. We had a nice sensibly paced run (which had nothing to do with Neil not arriving in time I’m sure) along a pleasant route out to the trig point near Bolton’s Bench. Jon Forster even made it out for possibly the first time this year!
Less than Leaping
Thursday, June 4th, 2009Not a great deal to say about last night’s RR10. My legs were still tired from the half marathon at the weekend and I still felt a bit drained from giving blood the previous day. On top of which the course was pretty dull, winding around the gravel tracks in the Inclosure for most of the race. I wasn’t therefore particularly surprised to be handed a ticket with the number 28 on at the finish.
Needles Half
Sunday, May 31st, 2009Top Twenty
Thursday, May 21st, 2009Two weeks ago I managed to completely forget that it was an RR10 – this time I remembered the race but forgot my shoes! Thankfully I was wearing an old pair of trainers to drive there and, other than a slight lack of grip, I wasn’t particularly disadvantaged. The venue was a delightfully sunny Wilverley Plain. Apparently the course was the same as last year but it was new to me. I quite enjoyed it with a good selection of undulations followed by a nice flat finish. I fell in behind a couple of Southampton runners for the first half of the course and then edged ahead of them on a downhill. I was still ahead when we reached the Plain but just didn’t have any kick at the end so they both overtook me on the run in. I was, however, happy not to feel too badly the effects of either the previous evening’s run or the half of my dinner that I had eaten before going out! I was even happy to discover that I’d made it in to the top 20.
Slippery customers
Thursday, May 21st, 2009The weather was fantastic for running on Tuesday night: bright sunshine filtering through the trees and a nice breeze to keep the midges away whilst we waited to start. We headed down to the Repitiliary this week and, yet again, I failed to see any reptiles (the closest we got was a snake skin). Heading back north we veered a bit close to the road but this did have the advantage that we didn’t hit the gravel track until we were fairly near to home. This will have been my last run from the Canadian War Memorial as it’s Emma’s birthday next Tuesday.
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